Teachers

Resources and aid for Teachers

This page to be a repository for what we can offer to help local teachers.

The sky is our original CLOCK and CALENDAR.

EQUIPMENT AVAILABLE:

LIBRARY SCOPES FOR TEACHERS - at present in St Charles County, we have one "Library Telescope" reserved for use by Teachers only. Contact your local St Charles City-County Library for details. Generally, you check the telescope out for a week, just like a book. Carry and transport it as you would a 2 yr old. This is a 4.5" tabletop dobsonian (Newtonian) reflector. For night-time use only!
SOLAR SCOPES FOR TEACHERS - ditto the above (at our Libraries), but for dedicated safe solar use. Several modified "Galileo" scopes (refractors) that can be mounted on a Library Scope. Also one "Sunspotter" solar scope for group viewing. Both types are for viewing sunspots and eclipses. As we are sometimes at "Solar Minimum", you might check www.spaceweather.com for current sunspots before borrowing these scopes, in case you otherwise might only see a white disk and no details.

EVENING STAR PARTIES:

We welcome the public every Friday Night (except major holidays), so long as it is not completely cloudy or raining, to view thru our telescopes at Broemmelsiek Park, located 4 miles south of Winghaven (directions). We call these "Friday Night Open Houses" and on clear nights we often have 40-80 attendees. In order to ensure that we have plenty of volunteers with telescopes, we ask that you notify us if you are bringing a class or group. Send us an email please to OUTREACH@ASEMONLINE.ORG. We also frequently provide constellation tours via Laser pointer, mostly upon request.
We can also come to your class, day or night, if the sky is clear and you have at least 30 attendees (preferably 50+). We used to do this frequently for Ft Zumwalt schools at Cuivre River State Park.

DO YOU NEED US TO COME TO YOUR SCHOOL?

Our preferred effort is to bring a telescope(s) on a CLEAR day to SAFELY share views of our local star (the sun) with your students LIVE. Schedule one day plus a backup date a few days later and chances are good that we can play outdoors! We have a variety of solar telescopes. Some show only sunspots and eclipses ("white-light" filtered). Others use hydrogen-alpha filters to show solar filaments and solar prominences. Sunspots move across the face of the sun from day to day as the sun rotates, but you don't really detect this movement easily in an hour or two. Prominences and filaments however, visibly change over the course of 15-30 minutes. These "Ha" filtered scopes are not available for checkout at libraries, but we are happy to bring them to you and share the views.
For indoor class presentations, please contact us to discuss your needs. We mostly do indoor presentations as a consequence of bad weather. One of our more popular activities is "making lunar craters", by letting students drop various sized objects into a mix of flour and cocoa (https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/edu/teach/activity/make-a-crater/). We can pair this with our large display case full of meteorites. We can discuss your needs with you and either make recommendations or create a presentation to fit your needs.
STEM events - we are happy to attend and showcase the science of astronomy at your school. We'd prefer sharing stellar views outside if clear, but bring some telescopes either way for eye candy and sometimes playful indoor use as it helps younger kids understand how to look thru a telescope. We encourage the use of the Library Scopes and the attendance at our Friday Night events as well.

RECOMMENDED BOOKS FOR BEGINNERS:

There Once Was a Sky Full of Stars (Bob Crelin) - a bedtime story
Skywatching (Levy)
Turn Left at Orion (Consolmagno & Davis)
NightWatch (Dickinson)
Backyard Astronomers Guide (Dickinson)